Where there is much optimism on Loch
Lomond about a future return to service of the Maid of the Loch there is little
but gloom about the paddle steamer Ryde lying derelict, as
she is, at Binfield on the River Medina on the Isle of Wight. Built in 1937 for
the Southern Railway's excursion services and ferry between Portsmouth, Southsea
and Ryde, the eponymous Ryde remained in service until 1969. She
then moved to her current berth
to replace the former Thames and Medway paddle steamer
Medway Queen whichhad been fulfilling a similar roleas a
static restaurant, bar and nightclub since 1966. The Ryde's time at Binfield did not serve her well. The business failed. She caught fire. And then
started the period of the long years when she was just left to decay. Rust built
on rust. The mast fell down. Last year the funnel decided that it had had
enough, gave up the ghost and toppled over into its present precarious position.

On the landward side the shore has come
out to meet the ship. Towards the river, the lagoon (on the right) has gradually silted up and
become rather more of a field than a waterway making any hope of floating the
ship
out a massive civil engineering project. But all thoughts of floating her are
rather optimistic with the hull corroded away to nothing in so many places and
generally riddled with holes.

The wind and weather strake on the
starboard side forward with excellent access to insert a camera on an extended
hand through one of
the long gone portholes to get an internal shot.

And what a sad shot it is.

It almost looks as though the ship has
been crying tears of rust as the hull and superstructure have gradually fallen
apart. The funnel has ended up propped at an uncomfortable angle like the head
of an elderly relative on the awkwardly placed pillow of their sick bed.

Amazingly the paddle wheels have lasted rather well compared with the rest of the ship. Everything
else may be decaying around them but there they sit in state amongst the rubble
proudly displaying their driving rods for the feathering mechanism as if it was only yesterday that they were
whirling round powering the ship across the Solent.

There may not be much future for the
Ryde but she still has her engine inside her and that is definitely worth
saving. What is more, it is a paddle steamer engine which has not had a huge
amount of wear for its age. Ryde was much used in her early years and
during the Second World War did quite a bit of steaming around the UK coast in various capacities. But after that and the arrival of the big Diesel
ferries Brading, Southsea and Shanklin, in 1948 and 1951 she, her sister
the Sandown and the Whippingham took very much back seats at
Portsmouth and paddled forth mostly only for relief ferry work and providing
additional capacity during the peak weeks, particularly the main holiday
weekends. Very occasionally for the odd afternoon the Ryde returned to
her former glory as an excursion steamer and took parties of sightseers from
Southsea and Ryde to view Southampton Docks or for a trip through the Solent to
Yarmouth. But these were rare outings for a ship which spent much of her later
years lying idle alongside the pontoon at Portsmouth or laid up for the winter
in the railway owned port of Newhaven.

One crew member in her later years was
the paddle steamer historian and chronicler of Cosens and Co, Richard Clammer,
who, as an undergraduate at the University of Sussex, spent some of his summer
holidays working on deck aboard the Ryde and other Portsmouth vessels.

Happier days. Ryde's pretty much
identical sister, the
Sandown, passing through the Town Bridge at Weymouth in the autumn of
1962 for a refit by Cosens and Co. She had three more seasons ahead of her
before being withdrawn in September 1965 and scrapped in Antwerp the following
spring. The pilot for this trip through the bridge was Capt Cyril Holleyoak,
master of Cosens' Embassy in 1962 and destined to be master of the paddle
steamers Princess Elizabeth in 1963 and Consul in 1964.

Capt Mike Ledger has sent in this lovely
shot of the Ryde steaming into Portsmouth Harbour at a good speed in
1953. It was taken from the decks of the paddle steamer Princess Elizabeth.